Historic Pact Expected to Lighten British Teachers' Workload

Teachers' unions and government leaders in Britain have agreed on a
plan to redistribute the work in schools so that teachers will have
more time for better teaching but a lighter load overall.

Two years in the making, the historic deal to rewrite teachers'
contracts in England and Wales is moving forward without the support of
the nation's largest teachers' union, which fears that teaching
assistants could replace teachers under cover of the agreement.

The pact attempts to temper escalating demands on teachers—who
are in short supply in Britain as they are in many places and
specialties in the United States—as well as help them meet higher
standards for student achievement.

A government-sponsored study in 2001 found that British teachers
worked hours comparable to those of other professions, when averaged
over the year. But when schools were in session, they worked on average
52 hours a week, and 16 percent of their time went to administrative
and other tasks.

The agreement includes the guarantee of the equivalent of a half-day
a week for planning, assessment, and marking; the elimination of
nonteaching tasks by the coming school year; and a cap on the number of
hours a teacher must spend covering the classes of absent colleagues.
It also makes a commitment to cut teachers' total hours within four
years.

"This package of reforms will change the way teaching and learning
develops in the United Kingdom," said a government spokeswoman. "Pupils
will get more attention, and teachers will get more time to teach."

The spokeswoman, who asked not to be identified, likened the
envisioned changes to those that were made years ago in hospitals,
where doctors, nurses, and other workers have different roles related
to the care of patients. In the case of schools, teachers would be
analogous to doctors, and teaching assistants would function somewhat
as nurses do.

'Price Is Too High'

Under the agreement, a class of high-level teaching
assistants— not yet established—would be allowed to provide
occasional lessons. That provision was the sticking point with the
National Union of Teachers, the nation's largest teachers' association,
with 210,000 teachers in state schools at the precollegiate level.

In a statement to members, the head of the union, Doug McAvoy,
praised the government's deal as offering "significant improvements in
the contract." But, he declared, "the price is to accept that
unqualified persons will teach whole classes. That price is too
high."

Some unionists, school administrators, and members of local
education authorities fear that the extra money the government of Prime
Minister Tony Blair has promised—predicted to be the equivalent
of about $1.64 billion a year in U.S. money by 2005—won't be
enough to make the agreement work.

They say that the money can help recruit more teachers and
support-staff employees, but that if teachers continue to be in short
supply, it will be hard to ease workloads without blurring the division
between teachers and assistants. Some have calculated that the
additional money divided among all the primary schools involved would
not be enough to employ a single full-time teaching
assistant.

A Seat at the Table

Gerald Imison of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, the
country's third-largest teachers' union, acknowledged the danger in the
plan. But, he said, taking the risk was the only way to be at the
table, pressing for a workload restructured along lines favored by
teachers.

Primary teachers in particular were crying out for time during the
school day to prepare lessons and grade papers, according to Mr.
Imison. "We have many, many reports of teachers working from 8 in the
morning till school finishes at 3," he said, without any break from the
classroom other than for lunch. The result is an additional several
hours of work after school and at home in the evening.

Mr. Imison's union was one of five that signed the agreement last
month, making the National Union of Teachers the only holdout among the
six major teachers' unions. As such, government leaders have excluded
them from talks to flesh out the agreement.

"The agreement sets a framework with detailed negotiations to come
that will make it or break it," Mr. Imison said. "Our executive
committee has made it clear that if we can't get the safeguards we
want, we may have to walk away."

Coverage of cultural understanding and international issues in
education is supported in part by the Atlantic Philanthropies.

Vol. 22, Issue 22, Page 11

Published in Print: February 12, 2003, as Historic Pact Expected to Lighten British Teachers' Workload

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